BETHEL  While controversy swirls over a substitute teacher who told first-graders that Santa Claus doesnt exist, a local dairy farmer and church deacon has put the same message in a very public place. By erecting a sign along the eastbound side of I-78, between the Bethel and Grimes exits, Leonard H. Martin has taken it upon himself to shatter the myth of Santa Claus for any youngster able to read the message from the back seat of a car as their parents drive by.

It marks the second consecutive year that Martin has posted what he termed a spiritual message on his land adjacent to I-78.

Last year, the sign stated, Santa is a myth, lying to our children brings moral decay.

For this season, Martin toned it down slightly. The sign now reads, Worship God, who is all knowing & all seeing, Santa is a Myth.

Martin, who operates a dairy farm at 250 Legion Drive, Bethel Township, is also a deacon with Harmony Christian Fellowship.

We wanted to bring out the point that (Americans) are making Santa out to be what God actually is, Martin said Tuesday. Were making Santa a god. I believe that is idol worship.

Let me get this straight: Santa is a myth because the only proof of his existence is in the minds of believers based upon lore that has been passed down from generation to generation. Yet God is real even though his existence is in the minds of believers based upon faith based Bible stories that have been passed down from generation to generation.

The man is 35 years old and the humblest, devout Christian you would ever know.

The man is 35 going on 70. No question on his level of devout-ness. I would, however, dispute his being "humble". He seems to be arrogant enough to feel he has the right to trump a parent's right and responsibility to provide their own children with truth and morality.

Yet God is real even though his existence is in the minds of believers based upon faith based Bible stories that have been passed down from generation to generation.

The "bible stories" are based on eyewitness accounts passed down through the generations. The stories of my Grandfathers experience in WWII has been passed down now 4 generations, yet I don't doubt his "stories" even though most of his men were killed or are dead and he has no pictures to back up what he experienced. That is faith as well in what he is saying is true. But tell you what, when you see a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer flying through the air at the speed of light, please tell me because my Visa bill for playing Santa this year is going to kill me!

10
posted on 12/26/2005 8:40:56 AM PST
by Bommer
(Christmas is in your heart, not WalMart!)

The man is 35 years old and the humblest, devout Christian you would ever know."

According to those who judge by outward appearances of "piety", maybe.

Evidence of humility is teachability (like a little child). He may be humble - time will tell. Right now he shows evidence of being still quite spiritually immature.

The spiritually immature give themselves away by being guite legalistic (because the young still need guard rails), and at the same time, arrogantly assume that they're grown up enough to teach others what they should "do" to be "right with God".

16
posted on 12/26/2005 9:47:51 AM PST
by Matchett-PI
( "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." -- Dwight Eisenhower)

Morality and all of its associated concepts are based on the belief that some higher power is defining the correctness of human behavior.

Today, "morals" are defined by a quasi-religious pagan philosophy based on esoteric hobgoblins. A greater number of "atheists" and "pagans" adopt the same hackneyed tenets of a false Judaic-Christian ideal (golden calf). They also subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of "sin," but will fight to their death in denial of it. Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians with the same false hypocritical philosophy. They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice - - they replace the idea of "avoiding sin" with "morals."

(Pssst... I'm not an orthodox or ecumenical atheist, there are no such things.)

Part IV. Of the Kingdom of DarknessChap. xlv. Of Demonology and other Relics of the Religion of the Gentiles.

[10] Another relic of Gentilism is the worship of images, neither instituted by Moses in the Old, nor by Christ in the New Testament; nor yet brought in from the Gentiles; but left amongst them, after they had given their names to Christ. Before our Saviour preached, it was the general religion of the Gentiles to worship for gods those appearances that remain in the brain from the impression of external bodies upon the organs of their senses, which are commonly called ideas, idols, phantasms, conceits, as being representations of those external bodies which cause them, and have nothing in them of reality, no more than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a dream. And this is the reason why St. Paul says, "We know that an idol is nothing": not that he thought that an image of metal, stone, or wood was nothing; but that the thing which they honored or feared in the image, and held for a god, was a mere figment, without place, habitation, motion, or existence, but in the motions of the brain. And the worship of these with divine honour is that which is in the Scripture called idolatry, and rebellion against God. For God being King of the Jews, and His lieutenant being first Moses, and afterward the high priest, if the people had been permitted to worship and pray to images (which are representations of their own fancies), they had had no further dependence on the true God, of whom there can be no similitude; nor on His prime ministers, Moses and the high priests; but every man had governed himself according to his own appetite, to the utter eversion of the Commonwealth, and their own destruction for want of union. And therefore the first law of God was: they should not take for gods, alienos deos, that is, the gods of other nations, but that only true God, who vouchsafed to commune with Moses, and by him to give them laws and directions for their peace, and for their salvation from their enemies. And the second was that they should not make to themselves any image to worship, of their own invention. For it is the same deposing of a king to submit to another king, whether he be set up by a neighbour nation or by ourselves.

[14] An image, in the most strict signification of the word, is the resemblance of something visible: in which sense the fantastical forms, apparitions, or seemings of visible bodies to the sight, are only images; such as are the show of a man or other thing in the water, by reflection or refraction; or of the sun or stars by direct vision in the air; which are nothing real in the things seen, nor in the place where they seem to be; nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object, but changeable, by the variation of the organs of sight, or by glasses; and are present oftentimes in our imagination, and in our dreams, when the object is absent; or changed into other colours, and shapes, as things that depend only upon the fancy. And these are the images which are originally and most properly called ideas and idols, and derived from the language of the Grecians, with whom the word eido signifieth to see. They are also called phantasms, which is in the same language, apparitions. And from these images it is that one of the faculties of man's nature is called the imagination. And from hence it is manifest that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing invisible.

[15] It is also evident that there can be no image of a thing infinite: for all the images and phantasms that are made by the impression of things visible are figured. But figure is quantity every way determined, and therefore there can be no image of God, nor of the soul of man, nor of spirits; but only of bodies visible, that is, bodies that have light in themselves, or are by such enlightened.

[16] And whereas a man can fancy shapes he never saw, making up a figure out of the parts of divers creatures, as the poets make their centaurs, chimeras and other monsters never seen, so can he also give matter to those shapes, and make them in wood, clay or metal. And these are also called images, not for the resemblance of any corporeal thing, but for the resemblance of some phantastical inhabitants of the brain of the maker. But in these idols, as they are originally in the brain, and as they are painted, carved moulded or molten in matter, there is a similitude of one to the other, for which the material body made by art may be said to be the image of the fantastical idol made by nature.

Part IV. Of the Kingdom of DarknessChap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness

[1] Besides these sovereign powers, divine and human, of which I have hitherto discoursed, there is mention in Scripture of another power, namely, that of "the rulers of the darkness of this world," [Ephesians, 6. 12] "the kingdom of Satan," [Matthew, 12. 26] and "the principality of Beelzebub over demons," [Ibid., 9. 34] that is to say, over phantasms that appear in the air: for which cause Satan is also called "the prince of the power of the air"; [Ephesians, 2. 2] and, because he ruleth in the darkness of this world, "the prince of this world":[John, 16. 11] and in consequence hereunto, they who are under his dominion, in opposition to the faithful, who are the "children of the light," are called the "children of darkness." For seeing Beelzebub is prince of phantasms, inhabitants of his dominion of air and darkness, the children of darkness, and these demons, phantasms, or spirits of illusion, signify allegorically the same thing. This considered, the kingdom of darkness, as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture, is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light, both of nature and of the gospel; and so to disprepare them for the kingdom of God to come.

"Why? Because he believes that you should worship God an not teach children lies?"

As an atheist, it may well be within my rights to put up a sign saying religion is a lie, but I don't because I respect my neighbors' beliefs. And I sure wouldn't be mean enough to hurt children, as his substitute teacher pal did.

No, being a jerk is going about it the wrong way. This man is anything but humble. No one but small children believe in Santa and you can believe in Santa as a child and still be taught the lessons of Jesus that will last your whole life. To stick up for this guy is wrong-headed, let children believe in the "magic" of Santa Claus for a few years of their life. Relax

"Let me get this straight: Santa is a myth because the only proof of his existence is in the minds of believers based upon lore that has been passed down from generation to generation. Yet God is real even though his existence is in the minds of believers based upon faith based Bible stories that have been passed down from generation to generation."

".... For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we (the regenerate) have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. ...But we have the mind of Christ." ­ 1Cr 2:9-12

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God" - (Romans 8:15-16).

"..Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." - Romans 8:9 and THE PICTURE IS HIDDEN

40
posted on 12/26/2005 10:28:28 AM PST
by Matchett-PI
( "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." -- Dwight Eisenhower)

As an atheist, I consider religion to be a lie. However, I do not put up signs proclaiming such, nor, in all my years as a teacher of children, did I take advantage of my position to disabuse students of their religious or cultural beliefs.

These Christians should have showed a little more respect and kindness for their fellow human beings, especially during a season that celebrates the birth of their beloved Jesus.

Santa Claus is a myth, so much for truth... and Saint Nicholas is dead.

Yes, that would be the truth. ...and when I decide to tell my children that truth should be my choosing. Morality is, in fact, based on the belief of a higher power-- I agree totally. Santa Claus is not taught, by the majority of us, as qualifying as a higher power. As my children reach the age where they can differentiate that, it will be made known to them. As it is, they are under no delusions that Jesus and Santa are the same person.

How dare he use the First Amendment! Do you consider arrogance to be a "sin" of some sort?

He has the right. He also needs to realize there will be consequences. My statement that he is arrogant is a rebuttal to someone who claimed he was "devout" and "humble". In general, although there are exceptions, I've found that the two are mutually exclusive. And by the way, "pride" is considered a bad policy, if not an actual "sin".

Contrarily, although I don't think he should be "forced" to bring down the billboard, I have no problem with him being shamed into taking it down himself-- or being confronted with the fact that he is, in point of fact, self-righteous and arrogant.

There are only two religions. You merely embrace one - out of the many versions - of the man-centered religion.

Also:

"I've already mentioned in 'From Skepticism To Worship' how my mind was able to intellectually accept two very different ways of interpreting the bible. In reading it as an explicitly stated, technical document, all I saw was a heap of contradiction and error that rendered the whole collection of books as nonsense. Reading it as poetry or literature, however, provided a completely different view, one that enabled me to see the harmony and higher meanings in the overall text.

For years, I had debated biblical inerrancy as a skeptic. While my new understanding of scripture allowed me to see reconcilable paradox where I had previously seen contradiction, and also dispensed many of my other arguments as irrelevant or insignificant, there still remained some legitimate points of contention that I simply didn't have the time or the resources to solve.

In trying to find quick answers, I turned from the library to the Internet and ran smack into J.P. Holdings Tekton Apologetics Ministries. In my opinion, this guy is the most thorough researcher and honest apologist I have ever read. His website is a treasure to any Christian who is bothered or entertained by debate. The anti-Christian crowd is fond of dismissing Christian apologists for telling 'what could have been or the way things may have been', but there is no denying that Mr. Holding's research illustrates what actually was and the way things actually were.

The moment that I saw the truth in the bible, I couldn't escape it and I gave myself to Jesus Christ. But I was weak in my newfound faith and I didn't have the evidence that one acquires from trusting God. I had never stopped debating - I had just switched sides, only I was ill prepared to defend my new position. To be engaged in constant debate without answers is to be in a state of suspended faith or perpetual doubt. Had it not been for the answers that J.P. Holding had posted online, my Christian faith may not have survived its infancy.

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